Madeleine K. Albright, the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, died on Wednesday in Washington.
She was the daughter of Czech refugees who fled Nazi invaders and Communist oppressors and eventually landed in the United States.
She died at the age of 84. According to her daughter Anne, the cause was cancer.
She gained to prominence as a great foreign affairs analyst before becoming an outspoken supporter of President Bill Clinton’s policies.
Where did Madeleine Albright live?
Madeleine lived in Prague, Czech Republic with her parents when she was growing up.
The family’s voyage from a Europe on the verge of World War II to safety in America took ten years and two escapes to London, with her father, a diplomat, likely facing execution.
The first occurred in 1939, when Nazi troops invaded Czechoslovakia, and the second occurred in 1948, after the family’s postwar return, when Czech Communists with Soviet help ousted Czechoslovakia’s government.
Madeleine Korbel was a smart student in America, married into the rich Albright-Medill newspaper family, and published numerous books and essays on public policy.
